Distance
by normalcyisoverated
Summary: After Kurt and Blaine receive Kurt's biological daughter via surrogate, Kurt is drafted into the army. ONESHOT


_Blaine,_

_I don't know what to say besides I miss you. I miss you and Charlotte every single day. I swear I'm being safe here, and I swear to come home to the both of you. There can't be more than a few months left, there just can't. I don't know…exactly where I am because I was just relocated, but I already want to leave._

_It's hard Blaine. It's really, really hard. Physically I am doing fine, but mentally it's terrifying. Watching people die in front of you…I don't know how to explain the horrors of it. I watched a child die today, and I watched her older brother pull her from underneath the bricks of the house that collapsed on top of her. There was so much blood, Blaine._

_But I promise that I will come back to you no matter what it takes. I don't want you to spend all of your time worrying about me. I want you and Charlotte to spend every moment of your lives free of pain._

_Speaking of Charlotte, how is our little angel? How many teeth does she have? God, I wish I didn't have to ask. I feel like I'm missing out on so much of her life, Blaine, and it kills me. It kills me to know that our beautiful daughter is growing up without me. _

_How's the book coming? Any new character development? Plot twists? I wish I could read it. I wish I could read it _with_ you. I wish I could _be_ with you…_

_Please stay strong, Blaine. Please._

_Who Dat,_

_Kurt _

Five Months Earlier:

"Blaine, can you make some more formula?" Kurt called from the living room.

"Sure, babe." Blaine set the bubbling pasta sauce to low heat, and began to warm up a bottle for his newborn baby girl. He and Kurt decided on adding another member to their family four years after they got married, and after the intense conversations of adoption, they settled on using a surrogate to birth Kurt's biological child. Charlotte Riley Anderson-Hummel weighed in at six pounds, thirteen ounces, and was eighteen inches long when she was born on March 9th, 2022. Three weeks later, Kurt and Blaine sat patiently with the love of their lives, rocking her to sleep and pampering her with soft blankets and colors to stimulate her growing mind. Nothing could go wrong for them and they'd never been happier.

But over the past few years, the American Government dug them selves into a hole much too deep, and got stuck in a war with the Soviet Reunion. Eventually, the war grew to intolerable levels and the president resorted to drafting young men to fight for their country. At first, Kurt and Blaine refused to let this phase them, but the reality of the war snuck up on them when they were handed their draft cards and had to wait and see if their number would be pulled.

"Blaine? Blaine, hurry up, they're pulling numbers," Kurt said, swinging Charlotte in his arms. Blaine stopped what he was doing, nerves controlling every movement his muscles made. They had called numbers several times before, but that didn't keep Blaine's mind from running to the thought of Kurt being chosen. The way drafting worked went like this: slips of paper were put into a large glass jar with the numbers one through 365 on them, representing each day of the year. If the number that was called corresponded with the day of your birth, you would be drafted into the military. It was an old-fashioned, unfair process, but the government thought it worked just fine, and used it to win a war that most of America had nothing to do with.

Blaine walked down the hall to the living room with a warm bottle in his hand, listening to the news anchor recite his daily update on the war. Blaine handed the bottle to his husband shakily. "Thank you, my love." Kurt said as he took the bottle to give to his daughter. Kurt looked at Blaine carefully, scanning his face for lines of worry or signs of distress. "Blaine, they aren't going to pick you. They aren't."

Blaine looked at his husband with worry, "that's not what I'm worried about," he mumbled. He sat down beside Kurt, who was feeding his daughter her bottle, paying no attention to the news. He didn't care if he was pulled as long as Kurt wasn't.

The anchor interrupted his thoughts with a loud interjection, "and now's that time of day, folks. The time when a few lucky men will be called to serve their country." Blaine grimaced at the anchor's cheerful tone. It made him sick to think that someone would smile at the fact that innocent people are sent to another country to, possibly, die. "And today's lucky number is: 148. I repeat, the number is: 148."

Blaine and Kurt stopped. _Everything_ seemed to stop. They both knew that number by heart. The 148th day of the year was May 27th. Kurt's birthday.

Present Day:

Blaine read the letter to himself six times. It was the shortest one he'd gotten so far, but it hit him hard. Kurt was in pain, and there was nothing Blaine could do about it. His husband had to watch strangers, as well as friends, die, and Blaine couldn't be there to comfort him or to hold him in his arms. It wasn't fair. Kurt didn't even get to watch his own daughter turn one year old.

Blaine wiped away his fallen tears from his cheeks, checking the clock. 1:48 a.m. He stood up from his fetal position on his leather couch and trudged to his bedroom. He pulled out his gray sweatpants and Kurt's ragged hoodie. It still smelled like him. After washing the tear-tracks from his face, and brushing his teeth, Blaine climbed on to Kurt's side of the bed and buried his head into his husband's pillow, something he rarely let himself give into because when he did, memories of Kurt started flooding back to him. And when those memories returned that night, Blaine didn't push them away, as he usually did. He remembered Kurt's laugh, his smile, his words, and his tears of pure joy when Charlotte was handed to them in the hospital. Kurt was his rock and his light, without him he was unsteady and lifeless, a marionette with no strings. Blaine wanted his daughter to know Kurt, to love him and to run to him when he got home from work, but when Blaine showed Charlotte a picture of her father, she only pointed and asked, "Who?" It broke Blaine's heart to know that for the first year of Charlotte's life she only knew one of her parents. He couldn't imagine what that was like for Kurt.

As Blaine wrapped in on himself, tucking his knees to his stomach, a dim light flashed, paired with a frantic buzzing noise. Blaine sat up, looking for the source of light and sound when it sparked again from his bedside table. He grabbed his laptop, running his fingers to the lid and opening it for a sign of life when a caption appeared. _Skype Call from: KurtHummelAnderson._ Blaine stared at the caption, his breath un-even, salt-water prickling his eyes, and moved his trembling fingers to the mouse pad. He circled his index finger inwards until the arrow on the screen faced the "answer call" button, and he clicked downwards. The screen was fuzzy for a moment, full of blotches and blurs, until a face cleared its way on to the computer.

"Blaine?"

"Kurt." Both men ran their fingers on the screen, making no further contact than the glass of the laptop. Their voices were breathy and whispered, still in shock. "I haven't seen you in a year. You've never called before." Blaine swallowed, thickly, holding back whatever emotion he could.

"I know. I'm sorry," Kurt answered.

"Don't be."

Kurt stared through the camera. " I miss you."

"I miss you, too," Blaine said, his voice hitching on the last word. And that's when the dam broke, tears running from both of their eyes, sobbing loudly. "God, Kurt please come home! I need you, Charlotte needs you!"

That made Kurt cry harder, tears racing to get out of his eyes. "I want to! I want to so bad, Blaine!"

"I'm so scared that you won't, though!"

"Don't talk like that!" Kurt yelled. They were both quiet, thinking about what they said.

"Oh my god, Kurt, I'm so sorry. You will come back. I should be supporting you on this…"

Kurt took a shattered breath, "it's okay."

"No, no it's not. I know that you will come back to me Kurt, and when you do, I'll never let you go again," Blaine whispered. "I promise."

"Okay." It was simple, but it hid so much meaning. They were silent for a moment, soaking up each other's presence.

Blaine realized how little Kurt had changed, besides his standard military haircut. "I like your hair," Blaine murmured.

Kurt scoffed, chuckling lightly, "it's terrible, isn't it?"

"It's not that bad…"

"Don't lie to me, Blaine Hummel-Anderson," Kurt commanded, pointing his finger at the screen.

"I'm not. You're always beautiful."

Kurt paused, stunned but flattered by Blaine's comment. It had been so long since anyone had given him a complement like that, so he pushed it away with an awkward cough and said, "you need to keep it down. I don't want to get reported."

Realization washed over Blaine's face as he thought about "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," which was re-instituted at the beginning of the draft. Blaine remembered the countless times they shared the two words "who dat" instead of saying, "I love you" in their letters because it was illegal. Code language was popular among the gay members of the army, but not stating your love for your husband in a year was heart wrenching for both Kurt and Blaine. "Right. I shouldn't have said anything. I'm sorry."

"Don't beat yourself up about it, Blaine," Kurt added.

Blaine shook his head, "no, I need to be more careful. It's just hard. I want to be able to tell you how I feel, but I'm restricted from it. And I know I shouldn't be complaining, because you are in a much more difficult situation, but it's just…hard."

"I know," Kurt said simply, despair written across his face. He took in a deep breath, trying to find a way to state his next question, and was undeniably nervous for reasons even he couldn't understand. "Um, Blaine? How's…how's Charlotte?"

Blaine knew it was coming, knew that the question was bound to be asked. He had no idea what it felt like to be separated from your child, and if he were to be separated from Charlotte he would be traumatized, but Kurt's her blood. "She's incredible, Kurt. She is so much like you." At that point, Kurt was stifling heavy sobs by sealing his lips together tightly. The back of his palm was pressed firmly to his mouth, and tears streamed freely down his face. "Do you…do you want me to get her?" Blaine asked cautiously.

Kurt nodded slowly, but stopped abruptly, holding his hands in front of the screen. "No, wait, Blaine. It's two in the morning where you are. I shouldn't have even called, let alone let you wake Charlotte."

Blaine stared at his husband in awe. This man, this beautiful, amazing man was telling him that he would prefer to keep his daughter happy and asleep than wake her so he could see her for the first time in the past year. "Kurt, she'll probably wake-up in the next hour or so anyway. You may not have the chance to see her for a long time. Let me wake her." Kurt sighed, keeping his voice level and quiet as replied that fine, he would let Blaine awaken her. Blaine smiled at Kurt's reaction and went out of the room for a minute to get his resting daughter. When he returned, Blaine carried a small body wrapped in pink pajamas, with a rubber pacifier in her mouth. She whined impatiently, burying her face in her daddy's shoulder.

Kurt gasped, unprepared for the sight in front of him. In his husband's arms was a girl with short, brunette hair and lovely green-blue eyes. She had tiny little fists and tiny little feet, but she'd grown up so much. "Oh…" was all Kurt could say, his tears still prominent but his breathing steady. Finally, after a moment of shock, he began to speak. "Hi, Charlotte. It's your Daddy. Do you remember me?" Blaine could tell how hard it was for Kurt to ask Charlotte that last question, afraid of the answer, but when Charlotte nodded, Kurt burst into a fit of tears. "I'll come home soon darling, I will. I miss you so much, Charlotte." Blaine knew that Charlotte was freaked out a little bit, but Blaine had gone to great lengths to make sure that she recognized her father, and when she put two and two together he could never have been happier.

And then the unexpected happened, and Charlotte spoke up, "Miss you, Daddy."

Blaine looked at his husband and his daughter, and for the first time in a year, he smiled a genuine smile to the loves of his life. "Who Dat, Kurt."

Kurt looked back at Blaine and Charlotte with utter love and pride, discreetly blowing a kiss to the camera. "Who dat." 


End file.
